Aztex
Carrying It On
by Kerry Dexter

"When we first put together the band, we had no plan of doing any sort of roots-based music," said Joel Guzman. "We just wanted to do good songs. And then when our son came along...It's almost like we look at him when we sing, though he's not even aware. In a way we're trying to make music so that we can affect kids in a positive way, maybe with the beat, or the language."

Guzman and his wife, Sarah Fox, are the heart of the Texas-based band Aztex. Fox is the lead vocalist, with Guzman laying the melodic foundation of their music on the accordion. Though they perform conjunto, jazz, and traditional tunes, the heart of their work is the original songs composed by one or both of them. On their debut album, Short Stories, the words and music move fluidly between English and Spanish idioms. "What we're doing parallels folk music, in a way," Guzman said. "And we love that music. We draw on Spanish influences, and Cajun, and bluegrass, and conjunto, and jazz... but Sarah's

writing has come around a lot more to the Spanish lately."

"I don't know what happened to me!" Fox said. "It's like, wait a minute, I know another language! I mean, we grew up speaking Spanish first, and I heard Mexican music from my mother and Cuban music from my father. But that wasn't the sort of music I wanted to do — I was really interested in R&B. Chaka Khan and Aretha Franklin were two of my favorites, and I remember loving Maria Muldaur's "Midnight at the Oasis.' " Fox's musical training began in school, where she first learned woodwinds and then studied singing. As a teenager, "My father was very strict. I couldn't have boyfriends or friends over, so I just immersed myself in academics and in the concert hall," Fox recalled.

Her husband's musical involvement began earlier. A child prodigy on the accordion, Joel Guzman was performing on stage with his family band from the age of four. " I would give my childhood a thumbs up," he said, "but it was a stage childhood, not a normal one. And when I became an adult I sort of felt as though a page in my life turned from there. But looking back, because of starting at such a young age, I had a chance to play with some of the greats, like Tony de la Rosa and Lydia Mendoza, when they were still active in their careers."

Guzman, who grew up in Washington State, and Fox, who is from Texas, met when Guzman was working with the Tejano group Little Joe, Johnny y La Familia. Fox's family had known Little Joe for some time, and she was often asked to sing a tune or two when the band played nearby. Guzman and Fox became in demand as session players, and they worked with or formed their own bands, playing rhythm and blues, salsa, and conjunto music. Gradually, they began developing their own sound, a fusion of rock, Tejano, Cajun, and other diverse elements from their backgrounds. "I had been invited to play a conjunto festival in San Antonio for several years," Guzman recalled, "and I'd just get my friends together and we'd pull out all the old conjunto tunes. Then we began working on the sort of music we'd do as Aztex, and I asked Sarah to come sing with us. At that time we were playing a mixture of Cajun, Tejano, and conjunto; we called it roadhouse music. When we got there I started saying we'll have to pull this one and that one and just do the old conjunto set. But Sarah said 'You ain't changin' nothin'!' ("I like to go against the norm," Fox interjected.) So I went outside and prayed a little bit," Guzman continued. "Then Mingo Saldivar came up to me after the show and said you guys are the ones who are going to do it, carry it on — he had tears in his eyes, and he was making me cry, too. He kind of gave us a blessing."

The couple experienced another blessing, as well. "We had the extreme pleasure of attending a prayer meeting with Sarah's sister," Guzman said. "We feel that God really touched our lives then. Up until that time we'd been set on how much money could we earn, and how could we spend it. But we really began to refocus our priorities."

This is an excerpt. Read the full article in Dirty Linen #87 (Apr/May '00).